[LUM#22] "Natacha, age 13: Can I use ChatGPT to do my homework?"
Sunday evening, 9pm, Natacha realizes she's forgotten to write the
paragraph on how the First World War transformed the world's political and economic landscape. A long sleepless night lies ahead... unless she asks ChatGPT to help her with her homework! Would that be wise?
ChatGPT is a conversational agent and the most popular of the so-called generative artificial intelligences. ChatGPT has been trained with a giant database for several years, with the aim of generating the most likely responses based on what it has learned.
Natacha can ask for help to save time. ChatGPT
will propose a plan to organize her ideas, and instead of rereading her lectures and searching
on the Internet, she will have access to information from a large database of
data. She can even have him correct her text. In short, ChatGPT can be
used as a research and writing assistant.
Although ChatGPT has all the trappings of intelligence, it is a tool with
limitations that we must be vigilant about. A first problem is linked to the
training data: they are produced by humans and therefore contain
multiple biases and stereotypes. Secondly, ChatGPT will always give an answer:
it can't say it doesn't know. In this case, it will invent an answer that is completely
plausible, but completely false - this is what we call hallucination.
This is why you should always check that the answers given are true.
To use ChatGPT effectively, you need to follow a few simple rules: formulate your question carefully; compare answers with other reliable sources; don't copy the text as it is, but reword it in your own style.
In short, ChatGPT can be an invaluable ally for Natacha, but she must
consider it as a support and not as a ready-made answer to her assignment.
Keeping a critical mind throughout the process, analyzing
information yourself and building your own reasoning are essential to
produce quality work. ChatGPT is there to support us, but it's up to us
to remain masters of our own learning and thinking.
Anita Messaoui - researcher at the Laboratoire interdisciplinaire de recherche en didactique, éducation et formation (Lirdef).
An article in partnership with The Conversation website.
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